As is known in the art, there is a trend to provide services and conduct business utilizing public computer networks. For example, due to the popularity of personals advertisements in newspapers and other print media and the increasing popularity of the Internet and the Internet's World-Wide Web there has been a trend to provide personals advertisement systems on computer systems accessible through public and private computer networks. Such personals systems are typically made available to users through computer programs used to locate resources on the World Wide Web generally referred to as Web browsers. Systems or services which are made available to users through the use of public computer networks are often referred to as being "online."
Online systems typically include a processing system generally referred to as a server which is coupled to the public network via a communications channel. System users transmit requests for information to the server over the public computer network using a predetermined communication protocol. The server responds to the requests fed thereto by providing the requested information to the system user. Such online systems, should preferably respond rapidly to requests by system users.
One problem in responding rapidly arises, however, when the server must access information which is remote to the server in order to access the requested information and provide the information to the system user. User requests for information often require the server to access an information database. If the information database containing the information is not provided as part of or is not readily accessible by the server, there is a concomitant delay in providing the information to the system user.
This problem is further exacerbated when the server is coupled between the public network and a private or local network having coupled thereto one or more databases which contain the information requested by the user. In this case, the server must first access the information database through the local network, locate and retrieve the desired information from the database and then transmit the information to the system user.
It would, therefore, be desirable to provide a system accessible by users over a public network and which integrates information from a plurality of disparate databases not accessible over a public network.